Stress Relief, Girl Style!

Okay the presentation that was given today, along with the class discussion, really got me thinking about how I deal with my stress and/or emotions. As I thought about it, I realized...I am not very good at dealing with either, at all! But, as the class conversation went on, I had a memory of a time that I think I, and my then roommates, dealt with our stress in a unique-ish, but effective way. I am very aware that the story I am about to tell is rather silly, and a little weird, and totally something that only a girl would do, but I am going to share it anyway.

It began with the start of a new semester. All of my wonderful roommates and myself were getting along great! We were spending lots of time together and we were making lots of friends in our ward. There was rarely a day that we did not have company streaming in and out of our apartment from 5:30 pm until curfew. It was great! ...And then school started to get more difficult and time consuming as the semester went on. We were still having a good time and enjoying each other, but the stress of keeping up with school, friends, family, and our constant company began to weigh us all down. Finally we hit a breaking point as an apartment. It was around the end of the semester and we were all completely overwhelmed. One of my roommates made the simple statement that she was exhausted, and that's all it took for us to begin hatching our plan to relieve some stress.

We needed something that would let us get some of our emotions out, we needed a break from company, and we needed to just relax. ...And so, we pulled out Charly. That's right... we pulled out a movie that we knew would give us all an excuse to cry. Then we all got cleaned up and into our pajamas, we grabbed blankets and pillows and made ourselves as comfortable as we possibly could. We then turned out all of our apartment lights, turned out our porch light, closed our blinds, and locked the door. We did not want anyone to know we were home, and that was how we began our de-stressing. We all sat in silence, in the dark, relaxed and enjoying our movie. Now, anyone who has seen the movie Charly will know that the ending is rather... tender. I wont say that it is a guaranteed tear jerk-er for everyone, but I will say that if you get a group of highly exhausted, stressed, and overwhelmed university aged girls together to watch it, there will be tears, lots of tears. And there were. It was like we were all expelling our stress through our tears. When the movie was over we sat in the dark, sniffling and teary eyed until we felt like we had enough, then we all wiped our tears, blew our noses, gave each other a hug and giggled for a minute about how silly we were, then we went to bed. It was not even ten o'clock yet, but we went to bed anyway. We all woke up the next morning rested and feeling ready to take on the world.

As I thought about this rather silly experience, I started wondering why it had worked so well for all of us, and what it was that had made it such a good experience. I came up with a few different ideas about why it was so helpful. First of all we were all needing some down time, which we got by turning out our lights, locking the door, and putting on a movie. Second, we all needed to express some emotion without feeling like we could be misunderstood, or even that we would be making others feel awkward. We accomplished that by putting on a move that evoked some of the same feelings from each of us, and then we just let our feelings out though our tears. We did not even have to talk to each other about our own specific problems, it was enough that we were all on the same emotional page with each other because of the movie. That probably would not have worked if we were have problems with each other, but we weren't, so it worked out great. We also needed the time at the end of the movie when we laughed at ourselves for what we had just done. That helped us remember to not take ourselves too seriously, and it helped lighten our moods. And, third and finally, we all needed physical rest, which we got by keeping company out, and going to bed early. It was so refreshing!
Now, every time I see this movie I think about that experience and smile!

(Just as a side note to this story... my roommates and I were not, and are not highly emotional or silly girls. None of us are the kind of girl who cried about everything or who is easily upset. We are normally very upbeat and stable girls, I promise :D)